Tamae Frame

Statement

My work symbolizes the subject as a vehicle to convey the hidden part of our psyche and the feminine spirituality. I depict female spiritual bodies in the bold-headed nude figures, which have been pruned of the trappings of their earthly existence. My intention is to use the figures as fodder for delivering the women’s state of mind by subtly stretching, twisting or relaxing the body-lines for expressing their tension, struggle, or calmness.

I also create mystical figures in which their body-parts are connected with other organisms and creatures: they are the expressions of mysterious inner dimensions of female consciousness.

I use mid-fire stoneware clay for its strength and stone-like appearance, and this material has opened the door to the creation of my sculpture in an intuitive way. While shaping a subject, its plasticity allows my hands to have a dialogue with the material which gives me time to tap into my subconscious, and the result is a piece that has emerged from deep within myself.

I often draw my inspirations for color and texture from the ancient Asian art, particularly Japanese Buddhist art and Indian Hindu art. I am fascinated by those ancient surfaces, which had been affected by time. For example, an Indian Hindu stone temple inspired the surface of my “Embodiment of the Lotus flower” series and the main color of the “Blooming of the Feminine Consciousness” was influenced by a 12th Century Japanese wooden Buddhist statue. It is my attempt to infuse timelessness into my work.

Most of my pieces are fired at stoneware temperatures with matte color glazes and pigments, and occasionally I use paint on a maturely fired piece in accordance with a particular effect that I want to create.

Japanese-born, Tamae studied many different arts such as calligraphy, drawing, painting, and jewelry design in her youth and later worked as a fashion jewelry designer in Tokyo, Japan. She immigrated to the U.S. in 1992 and began working as a full time studio jewelry artist whose focus was on producing one-of-a-kind jewelry. Her experience in creating art jewelry increased over the years, and eventually she was inspired to make figurative jewelry and it was well received in the craft market.

She exhibited in numerous invitational and juried gallery exhibitions and her work had been sold in a number of galleries across the country. She also participated in national juried shows such as The American Craft Show, as well as regional juried art fairs. She has received awards for Best Artist in the jewelry category on a few different occasions.

Tamae had been enjoying working as a jewelry artist, but at one night in 2004, a memory of the art project in the middle school when she sculpted a face of her class mate has risen up in her consciousness–suddenly, she recalled the touch of soft clay. Tamae felt a new creative urge to express her inner feelings in the form of figurative sculpture using malleable material than metals. Soon she pursued her new passion; she begun taking clay-sculpting workshops and classes at the local college and felt certain that clay was the best material in which to create her new art.

After spending several years perfecting her art in ceramics, she transformed herself into a ceramic sculptor. Her figurative sculptures have been shown in gallery shows and juried exhibitions, and recently her work was featured in the book called “Contemporary Sculptors – 84 International Artists”.